Here's a more nuanced theory: The building fronts, cars, etc look great because they are from street view. The roofs, treetops, etc, look terrible, because they are from satellite.
The roofs, treetops, etc. look terrible because the depth data is significantly lower resolution than the photos. This causes the deformed polygons you're seeing... The actual resolution of the photos of the roofs/treetops are just as good as everything else, they're just stretched over bad 3d data.